Kolokolo
by perichat
Summary: Kaldur, Roy, Artemis, and Zatanna investigate the strange noises going on at Black Manta's old Hawaii supply base.


for shadesninde on tumblr for the YJ fic exchange 2k16!

Kolokolo is a Hawaiian word meaning to track down, investigate, or seek evidence. At least according to the Hawaiian dictionary wehewehe . org, which seems pretty legit but I'm not an expert on the language and if it's wrong or complete nonsense I'm sorry!

* * *

Kaldur glances over at the boat's speedometer and frowns. He could swim faster than they're moving. And he can't say he isn't tempted to dive out of the boat and go for it, but he can't abandon his surface-dwelling teammates. He wishes they could move quicker, but if they did the engine would make too much noise. This is supposed to be a stealth mission after all. Infiltrate his father's old supply base, figure out why the neighbors are reporting strange sounds coming from inside, and leave, preferably before anyone knows they were there.

Kaldur looks around at his teammates, and is somewhat comforted to see that they are just as impatient as he. Roy steers their boat with a tight grip on the wheel and a clenched jaw. Artemis bounces her knee up and down as she looks off into the distance. Zatanna places a gentle hand on top of it to get her to stop. Artemis starts tapping her fingers on the railing instead.

"So remind me again why Manta had a supply base in Hawaii?" Roy asks, keeping his eyes straight ahead. "Wouldn't it be more practical to have somewhere it less isolated and where everything doesn't have to be imported?"

"Actually the seclusion was a draw when he had this place built." Kaldur explains. "He wanted a place where he wouldn't have to worry about being found. Plus he rarely used this base for essentials. It was more for luxury items. Food. Alcohol. Things of that nature."

"Black Manta and his fleet liked the finer things in life." Artemis continues. "And since the neighborhood is swarming with rich people, nobody would think twice if he ordered a bulk supply of vintage wine or something."

"Guess that explains why Bruce Wayne has a house here." Zatanna says. "Wish he didn't live on the other side of the island though."

"Still it's fortunate for us he has a zeta tube in such close proximity. Considering the next nearest one is in San Diego and we don't have M'gann's bioship." Kaldur reminds her.

"Is that it up ahead?" Zatanna asks, pointing at a large, yellow house on a rocky cliff with a stucco roof and wide balconies overlooking the ocean.

"Yup that's it." Artemis confirms.

"Woah, it's gorgeous." Zatanna says. "I can see why someone would want to live here."

"Just wait until you see the inside." Artemis says. "Manta had an eye for interior design."

"Isn't it a little small to be a supply base?" Roy asks. "I know the big part is underneath the house, but still, how many ships could you fit down there?"

"Two at most I believe." Kaldur answers. "It didn't have to be ungodly large like his other bases. As I mentioned it wasn't one of his main spots."

"This was sort of like his vacation home." Artemis adds. "He'd stop in, sometimes with a few of his higher ups. Rest, relax, stock up on some things if he needed to, maybe do some paperwork. Then he'd get back to business."

They tie their boat to a dock one house down from Manta's. Hopefully the neighbors won't mind. His father's old house is best suited for submarines, not boats. Besides, Kaldur's not sure if the old security measures are back in place, and if they are they can't get too close.

"Are you guys ready to execute the plan?" Kaldur asks. All three of them nod at him in agreement.

Kaldur and Artemis are both well-versed in the base's security. They know Manta had the front and back of his hideout well-covered with cameras and alarms, but the security minimal on the roof. And they know he had a skylight in one of the bedrooms.

" _Etativel_!" Zatanna chants and she flies off to the top of Manta's house. Her spell's not powerful enough for everyone though. Roy and Artemis both fire grappling arrows onto the neighbor's roof. Kaldur creates a pillar of water to elevate himself upwards until he's level with the roof and jumps over. The two houses are too far apart to leap across, but the neighbor's house has an extra level and that makes it slightly taller than Manta's. Roy and Artemis shoot off zip lines, and the three of them zip over without much trouble.

"Took you guys long enough." Zatanna says when the three of them finally reach Manta's roof.

"Yeah well we don't all have magic flying powers." Artemis says dryly.

Zatanna smiles and rolls her eyes at the sarcasm. "While you guys were making your way over I found the skylight and vanished the glass."

Roy takes a climbing rope out from his pack and after attaching one end to the roof he drops the other down into the bedroom. They skylight is only big enough for one of them to enter at a time. Kaldur slides down first. He sees Artemis move to follow, but he signals for her to stop. He takes a quick glance around and listens for any noises, but he doesn't sense anything immediately. After a moment he motions at his team to follow him down.

The bedroom is dark, but Kaldur can see enough to tell that quite a few things are missing. Bare hooks hang on the walls where paintings once were. Trinkets and curios that were on display on the dresser and nightstands are gone. Even the bed has been stripped of its silken linens.

Roy runs his finger along one of the nightstands, and squints at it under the dim light from his flashlight. "Dusty. Doesn't look like anyone's been here for a while."

"Yeah, the place has been picked clean." Artemis says. She opens up one of the dresser drawers. "Okay not entirely clean. They left a few mothballs behind."

Zatanna opens the closet doors. "Still some clothes in here. Tacky Hawaiian shirts by the looks of it. I thought you said Manta was stylish."

Artemis glances over at the closet and snorts out a laugh. "Those were probably Lowe's. He's one of the higher-ups in Manta's chain of command, and the only guy in his fleet who'd be caught wearing those unironically."

Once they finish inspecting the bedroom they quietly move out into the hall. Roy and Artemis lead the way with their bow and crossbow at the ready. Kaldur notices the large portrait of his father that hung on one of the walls is no longer there.

"Think it's okay to split up? We could cover more ground that way." Roy suggests.

"Yeah, I think were safe. "Artemis says. She turns to Zatanna. "Wanna check the main floor Sweetie?"

Zatanna nods. "Stay in touch you two. Let us know if you spot anything suspicious."

Artemis and Zatanna tiptoe down the stairs, and Kaldur and Roy slowly creep over to the second bedroom. The two of them search for any sign of who's been here and if anyone is still here before moving along to the third bedroom and then the master suite to do the same. All the bedrooms share two things in common: they've fallen into a state of disarray, and everything of value is missing.

"So someone's definitely been here. But was it Manta's men, or just petty thieves?" Roy whispers as they enter the study, the only room aside from the hallway bathroom that they haven't searched.

"I think I have a way to answer that question." Kaldur says and heads for the executive desk in the center of the room. "There's a safe hidden in the bottom left drawer. It uses an iris scanner, and there are only a few people outside of myself and my father who could open it."

Kaldur lines up his eye with the reader and after a moment the safe blinks green and makes a clicking noise. He swings the door open and he and Roy both purse their lips and frown when they see that it's empty.

"You're sure there was something in here?" Roy asks. "That it wasn't just empty when we took your Dad down?"

Kaldur nods. "Almost certain. I don't think he ever kept it empty. And I remember a week before his capture he told me he was storing some documents here. I never heard him talk about coming back to retrieve them."

Roy sighs. "Well I guess we should regroup with Artemis and Zatanna and see what they found." Kaldur nods solemnly in agreement. The two of them head downstairs, careful to make as little noise as possible. Though at this point they're fairly certain no one's here. They find Artemis and Zatanna searching around the front entryway.

"Did you guys find anything?" Kaldur asks.

"Yeah, I gigantic mess in the kitchen." Zatanna says. "We're guessing whoever was here had to leave in a hurry."

"We also found this." Artemis says, holding up a small plastic tub in their line of sight. Kaldur can't read the label to determine what it is, but he picks up whiffs of a rancid smell coming from inside.

"A yogurt cup?" Roy asks, quirking an eyebrow.

"With an expiration date of six months ago." Artemis explains. "So whoever took everything wasn't here recently."

"What about you guys? Find anything interesting?" Zatanna asks. They both looks dismayed when Kaldur tells them about their experiment with the safe.

"Well at least if Manta's men were here, they haven't been back recently. Either that or they're complete slobs, not dusting and leaving trash all over the place." Zatanna says reassuringly.

"And it doesn't look like they're using this place permanently. I think they just wanted to salvage what they could and leave." Roy continues.

Kaldur rubs his chin. "Then if they weren't here recently, why have the neighbors been complaining about noises for the past week?"

Artemis shrugs. "Because they're uppity rich people?"

"Or maybe there's something in the basement, with the submarine port." Roy suggests. "It's the only place we haven't looked yet."

"Well now we have to check it, don't we?" Kaldur says jokingly, and he leads the team over to the other side of the house where the basement door is. When he opens it he immediately hears a loud humming sound. He can feel the ground vibrating beneath his feet.

"That's the generator?" Kaldur says, voice raised in surprise. "Who could have turned it on?"

Then they hear another noise echo across the entryway. This one low-pitched, almost like a growl. It doesn't sound human, but it doesn't sound like a machine either. Another almost identical noise follows, then two more.

"What was that?" Zatanna whispers.

"No clue." Kaldur says.

They go down the stairs with extreme caution, keeping their weapons at the ready. The humming of the generator gets louder and louder the further down they go. When they reach the bottom they hear that growling-noise once again. Kaldur looks around for the source, but the basement is so dark he can barely see anything. He squints over towards the submarine port. He doesn't see a hulking, black mass of a ship docked there. Even in the dark he'd be able to see that.

Artemis turns on her flashlight and shines it at the port. The light reveals nothing but calm, turquoise water. She lets out a sigh of relief. "So Manta's men aren't here. Then what's making the noises?"

Kaldur gazes at the water, for a moment he thinks he sees a small figure moving beneath the surface.

"What was that?"

"What was what?" Roy asks.

"I saw something moving." Kaldur says, he points at the spot. "There it is again!"

"Kaldur I don't see what-" But before he can complete his sentence Kaldur is diving headfirst into the water.

"Kaldur be careful!" Roy shouts at him. The three of them watch the water anxiously waiting for Kaldur to resurface. After a few minutes they see his silhouette in the water appear and it becomes clearer as he reaches the surface. When his head reemerges there's a grin on his face.

"I found the source of our noise and lights." He says, sounding amused.

"What is it?" Zatanna asks.

"Artemis, shine your light over there." Kaldur points at an area to his right. Artemis' light follows his finger and lands on a group of large, grey seals. One of them turns to look directly at them and makes the low-pitched noise they'd been hearing. Roy and Zatanna's eyes widen, but Artemis snorts, trying to stifle her laughter.

"Oh my god, I forgot how much trouble these guys used to cause us. I don't know why those seals liked it here of all places. What with the submarines and all. I think some of the guys tried to feed them."

"But how are they causing all the noise?" Zatanna asks. "Surely it wasn't their barking the neighbors were complaining about."

"And it's not like seals can turn a generator on." Roy adds.

"There's an outside button hidden into the rock underwater that opens the submarine hatch." Artemis explains. "The seals would sometimes accidentally open and close it. And that door opening and closing uses enough energy to turn on the generator and it makes a fuckton of noise."

"Manta had that button safety-locked so the seals couldn't mess with it, but I swam outside to check and it's been undone." Kaldur says. "I was able to reattach it pretty easily, but I'll look into something a little more permanent so we aren't back here."

"So all of this was a bunch of seals?" Roy says incredulously. "We snuck around the house, terrified that we might get caught by Manta's remaining fleet, only to find it was a bunch of seals? What a wasted Saturday night."

"I wouldn't call it a complete waste." Kaldur says with a mischievous lilt in his voice. He eyes Roy's ankle, and Roy lets out a yelp as yanks him into the water. Roy resurfaces with an unamused look on his face.

"You could have at least let me take my shoes off first." Roy grumbles. Kaldur chuckles and presses a sloppy kiss to his cheek.

"Swim with me Love." Kaldur says. Roy grins at him, and splashes his boyfriend's face with a wave of water.

Artemis and Zatanna watch the ensuing splash fight from the surface with amused expressions. " _Egnahc rou sehtolc otni stiusmiws_." Zatanna chants, and in a cloud of lightning and smoke their outfits transform into swimwear.

"I don't recall owning any swimsuits like this." Artemis says, inspecting the green bikini she's now wearing.

"Maybe it's a sign that you should start wearing them more." Zatanna says roguishly. Artemis gasps and playfully swats her upper arm. Zatanna just smiles back at her. The two clasp hands and jump into the water.

"You boys up for a game of sharks and minnows?" Zatanna asks tauntingly. "Loser has to file the mission paperwork."

Kaldur smirks. "You're on."


End file.
